A clinical or healthcare environment is a crowded, demanding environment that would benefit from organization and improved ease of use of imaging systems, data storage systems, and other equipment used in the healthcare environment. A healthcare environment, such as a hospital or clinic, encompasses a large array of professionals, patients, and equipment. Personnel in a healthcare facility must manage a plurality of patients, systems, and tasks to provide quality service to patients. Healthcare personnel may encounter many difficulties or obstacles in their workflow.
Healthcare environments, such as hospitals or clinics, include clinical information systems, such as hospital information systems (HIS) and radiology information systems (RIS), and storage systems, such as picture archiving and communication systems (PACS). Information stored may include patient medical histories, imaging data, test results, diagnosis information, management information, and/or scheduling information, for example. The information may be centrally stored or divided at a plurality of locations. Healthcare practitioners may desire to access patient information or other information at various points in a healthcare workflow. For example, during surgery, medical personnel may access patient information, such as images of a patient's anatomy that are stored in a medical information system. Alternatively, medical personnel may enter new information, such as history, diagnostic, or treatment information, into a medical information system during an ongoing medical procedure.
A reading, such as a radiology or cardiology procedure reading, is a process of a healthcare practitioner, such as a radiologist or a cardiologist, viewing digital images of a patient. The practitioner performs a diagnosis based on a content of the diagnostic images and reports on results electronically (e.g., using dictation or otherwise) or on paper. The practitioner, such as a radiologist or cardiologist, typically uses other tools to perform diagnosis. Some examples of other tools are prior and related prior (historical) exams and their results, laboratory exams (such as blood work), allergies, pathology results, medication, alerts, document images, and other tools.
Picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) connect to medical diagnostic imaging devices and employ an acquisition gateway (between the acquisition device and the PACS), storage and archiving units, display workstations, databases, and sophisticated data processors. These components are integrated together by a communication network and data management system. A PACS has, in general, the overall goals of streamlining health-care operations, facilitating distributed remote examination and diagnosis, and improving patient care.
A typical application of a PACS system is to provide one or more medical images for examination by a medical professional. For example, a PACS system can provide a series of x-ray images to a display workstation where the images are displayed for a radiologist to perform a diagnostic examination. Based on the presentation of these images, the radiologist can provide a diagnosis. For example, the radiologist can diagnose a tumor or lesion in x-ray images of a patient's lungs.
Typically, data stored in a PACS is stored as Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) data. DICOM is a standard for image and information transmission. DICOM relates to the transfer of electronic data between medical diagnostic and imaging systems. The DICOM protocol may be employed in communication between medical devices and PACS. The DICOM standard enumerates a command set, data formats, interface specifications, communication protocols, and command syntax. However, the DICOM standard does not specify details of implementation. DICOM sets forth Information Objects (types of data, such as computerized tomography, magnetic resonance, x-ray, ultrasound, etc.), Service Classes (actions with data, such as send, receive, print, etc.), and data transmission protocols. The Service Class User (SCU) protocol governs use of the DICOM service. The Service Class Provider (SCP) protocol governs the provider of the DICOM service.
Current PACS systems use general techniques known as hanging protocols to format display or layout of images. Hanging protocols allow a user to display images based on modality, anatomy, and procedure. Hanging protocols present a perspective or view to a user, such as a radiologist. Images may be grouped according to characteristics such as DICOM series or series number.
Additionally, PACS systems attempt to prepare images for viewing by users by applying a series of processing steps or functions included in a Default Display Protocol (DDP). A DDP is a default workflow that applies a series of image processing functions to image data to prepare the image data for presentation to a user on a particular monitor configuration. DDPs typically include processing steps or functions that are applied before any diagnostic examination of the images. A DDP may be based on a type of imaging modality used to obtain the image data, for example. In general, a DDP attempts to present image data in a manner most useful to many users.
With increasing volumes of examinations and images, a reduction of radiologists and mounting pressures on improved productivity, radiologists and other healthcare personnel are in need of image processing or display workflow enhancements that alleviate rote, repetitive tasks. Currently, medical images are displayed using only a single image presentation context (IPC). An IPC comprises functions that alter the presentation of an image such as, for example, zoom, pan, grayscale, invert color, filter, contrast, etc. Different types of anatomy have different optimal IPCs for viewing structures or tissue. For example, in an x-ray image of a chest, bones are clearly shown when a darker contrast is applied to the x-ray image while tissue is clearly shown when a lighter contrast is applied to the x-ray image. As a result, radiologists, physicians, or healthcare personnel must switch back and forth between medical images of the same structure with different IPCs for making a medical diagnosis. This switching between multiple images is inefficient and relies on the ability of healthcare personnel to remember what an image looked like in a different IPC.
Alternatively, healthcare personnel may load multiple images with different IPCs of the same structure on to a single or multiple display screens. However, this requires healthcare personnel to glance back and forth between the multiple images to perform comparisons for making a diagnosis. The inefficient manner of viewing multiple images causes the healthcare personnel to spend extra time viewing images and comparing information between two or more images. This extra time reduces their ability to perform other tasks such as treating patients or examining medical information for other patients. Additionally, for presentations or display publications healthcare personnel must print multiple versions of a structure with different IPCs in order to display different anatomies in the structure.